An overdose of rules

I’d like to tell you a little story about my father-in-law. Back in the mid 1970s, he contracted tuberculosis. No-one was entirely sure, but the doctors suggested he might have picked it up from drinking raw milk when he lived on a farm as a child.

Anyway, as a result of that TB, he initially lost one kidney. Over the course of the next fifty or so years, his remaining kidney gradually ceased to function. For the last year of his life, he was on dialysis.

That loss of kidney function came with side effects. His doctor placed him on a course of water tablets to take care of what he called his “water works”; but those tablets made him constipated. He was prescribed a pill to ease the constipation. Which it did. But it also gave him gout. The doctor prescribed a treatment for his gout. That worked as well. His gout was gone. But he now had what the doctors called “restless leg syndrome”; his legs constantly twitching and spasming, particularly at night. As a result, he couldn’t sleep. The doctor prescribed sleeping tablets. They gave him a good night’s sleep. They also gave him severe, migraine-level headaches. He was offered painkillers to ease the headaches. But they were discovered to counteract his heart medication.

At no point was he summoned to the doctor’s surgery or to the hospital to go back to basics; to treat the original symptoms. Instead, a new layer of medication was used to pave over the cracks.

Doctor after doctor. Pill after pill. Side-effect upon side-effect. My father in law passed away earlier this year. By the time he did so, he was taking 18 tablets each day; the majority of the pills – seemingly – to counteract the effects of another pill.

At this point, you would be fully justified in asking what the Hell my father in law’s medical treatment has to do with anything. Thankfully, the answer to that question is very easy.

Replace my father in law with the demolition and construction industry; and replace all those pills, potions, medicines and lotions with legislation. Remedy upon remedy, each one piled upon the next. Some counteract and contradict; some are there purely to address that side effects of something prescribed previously.

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The Break Fast Show #969

In today’s show: Volvo’s all-electric demolition site – The full story; curves and contours made easy with Leica; earthmoving success? There’s a Cat app for that; and Hyundai puts on a show in the United Arab Emirates.

PLUS in Mark’s Morning Monologue: An overdose of rules.

Join host Mark Anthony LIVE for The Break Fast Show – the ONLY daily LiveStream built exclusively for demolition, construction, and equipment fanatics worldwide.

Breaking news. Expert views. Unmissable videos. Raw opinions. If it matters in the industry, we’re talking about it – LIVE.

Test your knowledge with the Mystery Machine, have your say in the Question of the Day, and don’t miss Mark’s Morning Monologue – a no-holds-barred take on the hottest topics.

And when the show’s done, the conversation’s just getting started. Stick around for The Craic, our legendary after-show chat!

Set your alarm. Grab your coffee. It’s time to break fast, and to break new ground.

The silent surrender

It’s the snowball effect. That’s what it is. It starts as one small thing. Insignificant. But it grows. In size, in speed. And suddenly, it’s too big and moving too fast to stop.

That’s why you’re sitting there, thinking the unthinkable. Contemplating. Replaying it in your head. Trying to make sense of something that stopped making sense weeks ago.

It’s hard now to see how you got here. Hard to see where your life made that sharp left turn and took you down a dark, untrodden path.

You’d had your highs and lows. Who hasn’t? But this low was a new low. Deeper.

The first thing was the lay‑off. You didn’t see it coming; you were unprepared.

Everything at work had seemed fine. You got on well with your team; your boss seemed pleased. In fact, you’d received a few commendations.

So when redundancies were announced, you thought – you KNEW – you’d be safe. You were too valuable. You’d been there too long.

It didn’t matter. The call, when it came, was impersonal. Distant. No “thank you.” No “best of luck.” No offer of career guidance. You were no longer needed. Discarded.

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The Break Fast Show #968

In today’s show: XCMG’s Chinese giant; tales of Cats and ducks; Hyundai wheel loader keeps plant moving; and, as our thoughts turn to summer holidays, Venieri cleans up the beaches.

PLUS in Mark’s Morning Monologue: The silent surrender

Join host Mark Anthony LIVE for The Break Fast Show – the ONLY daily LiveStream built exclusively for demolition, construction, and equipment fanatics worldwide.

Breaking news. Expert views. Unmissable videos. Raw opinions. If it matters in the industry, we’re talking about it – LIVE.

Test your knowledge with the Mystery Machine, have your say in the Question of the Day, and don’t miss Mark’s Morning Monologue – a no-holds-barred take on the hottest topics.

And when the show’s done, the conversation’s just getting started. Stick around for The Craic, our legendary after-show chat!

Set your alarm. Grab your coffee. It’s time to break fast, and to break new ground.

Forgotten contribution

I’d like you to imagine that you are a football player. You are good. Very good, in fact. And that is why you’re playing in the English Premier League for a well-respected team. For the sake of this story, let’s say you are a midfield player with Nottingham Forest.

As a player, you train four and five times per week. You play competitive matches on a Saturday or a Sunday and often on a Tuesday or Wednesday too.

Football is your life; the thing you always wanted to do. And while your career is the realisation of a childhood dream, there have been lots of sacrifices along the way; sacrifices that got you to where you are today.

When you were younger, while all your friends were out partying and drinking, you stayed in. You didn’t drink, you didn’t smoke, and you didn’t experiment with drugs of any kind. Football came first.

When your friends all got girlfriends, you didn’t. You could never spare the time. On the rare occasions that you did get a girlfriend, the relationship was over before it even began, just as soon as she realised that football came first, second and third in your life.

There’s been no trips to fancy restaurants. You have been on a nutrition-rich diet for the past 12 years. Along the way, you have had numerous operations to patch you up after injuries: some minor; some far more serious.

Yes, you have been rewarded handsomely along the way. You have the nice house and the fancy car. But you have given EVERYTHING to football in general, and to your club in particular.

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The Break Fast Show #967

In today’s show: Magni goes full power; versatile Volvo in Vermont; Bobcat’s new mini excavator in action; and we are marking the launch of the new Caterpillar 980 GC with the return of Demi Lition.

PLUS in Mark’s Morning Monologue: Forgotten contributions.

Join host Mark Anthony LIVE for The Break Fast Show – the ONLY daily LiveStream built exclusively for demolition, construction, and equipment fanatics worldwide.

Breaking news. Expert views. Unmissable videos. Raw opinions. If it matters in the industry, we’re talking about it – LIVE.

Test your knowledge with the Mystery Machine, have your say in the Question of the Day, and don’t miss Mark’s Morning Monologue – a no-holds-barred take on the hottest topics.

And when the show’s done, the conversation’s just getting started. Stick around for The Craic, our legendary after-show chat!

Set your alarm. Grab your coffee. It’s time to break fast, and to break new ground.

The Break Fast Show #966

In today’s show: We’re taking a walk around the hot new mini excavators from Bobcat; you’ll be green with envy over the new electric mini from LiuGong; we’re taking a closer look at the latest grader from Caterpillar; and this self-loading concrete truck has redefined efficiency.

PLUS in Mark’s Morning Monologue: Construction – Where freedom of speech is turned upside down.

Join host Mark Anthony LIVE for The Break Fast Show – the ONLY daily LiveStream built exclusively for demolition, construction, and equipment fanatics worldwide.

Breaking news. Expert views. Unmissable videos. Raw opinions. If it matters in the industry, we’re talking about it – LIVE.

Test your knowledge with the Mystery Machine, have your say in the Question of the Day, and don’t miss Mark’s Morning Monologue – a no-holds-barred take on the hottest topics.

And when the show’s done, the conversation’s just getting started. Stick around for The Craic, our legendary after-show chat!

Set your alarm. Grab your coffee. It’s time to break fast, and to break new ground.

Construction’s crimewave

A potential whistleblower on LinkedIn is apparently planning a tell-all book that will name names and expose the dark underbelly of the UK’s asbestos industry.

If even half of what he is saying is true, the revelations contained within his book will cause a storm of unprecedented magnitude within the sector.

Yet, in many ways, any such book will merely reinforce that which we already know. Corruption and criminality are rife within the UK demolition and construction industry. From plant and fuel theft to major fraud, this is an industry in which illegality is as ever-present as diesel fuel and plastic hard hats.

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The Break Fast Show #965

In today’s show: Checking out the Bobcat L285 wheel loader; we’re taking an in-depth look at the Develon D100 dozer; Venieri targets utilities; and brute force gets the job done with the Hurricane drop hammer.

PLUS in Mark’s Morning Monologue: Construction’s crime wave.

Join host Mark Anthony LIVE for The Break Fast Show – the ONLY daily LiveStream built exclusively for demolition, construction, and equipment fanatics worldwide.

Breaking news. Expert views. Unmissable videos. Raw opinions. If it matters in the industry, we’re talking about it – LIVE.

Test your knowledge with the Mystery Machine, have your say in the Question of the Day, and don’t miss Mark’s Morning Monologue – a no-holds-barred take on the hottest topics.

And when the show’s done, the conversation’s just getting started. Stick around for The Craic, our legendary after-show chat!

Set your alarm. Grab your coffee. It’s time to break fast, and to break new ground.

I have a dream

I have a dream.

I have a dream that one day, in every town and city, from the muddy trench to the tallest tower crane, no worker shall fear for their life just by turning up to work.

That no mother shall receive a call saying her son isn’t coming home.

That no child shall grow up remembering their father not by his voice or his laugh, but by is presence at the dinner table every evening.

I have a dream of a world where safety isn’t a slogan; where it isn’t a poster gathering dust in the site office; but a sacred pact.
Where risk is managed, not tolerated. Where a near miss is a lesson, not a statistic to be buried in a report. Where safety isn’t just a goal, it’s a guarantee.

I have a dream of an industry where a worker’s value is measured not by the colour of the card in their wallet, but by the dedication in their heart and the knowledge in their heads.

Where competence is earned, not assumed. Where experience is not measured by a piece of paper, and that piece of paper is not mistaken for wisdom.

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